The present invention relates to water safety devices and, more specifically, to a child locator buoy.
The affinity of children for water is well known and it has long been a problem for parents or other supervisors to know the exact location of their wards at play at swimming holes, on river banks and particularly on crowded seaside beaches. The risk is particularly for small children playing in the surf where they may be knocked from their feet by a wave and swept away, seaward or up or down the beach, by the ocean currents.
Brightly colored and distinctive clothing is an advantage, but clothing is not always visible to the supervisor as the clothing may be submerged in normal play and of no assistance whatsoever in the event the child is submerged.
Brightly colored floating toys offer some protection. However, it is difficult for a child to freely swim or play in or near the water while maintaining contact z- z with such toys, and they are often discarded. Moreover, such toys are of no assistance in the event a child is inadvertently separated from the toy and in distress.
Brightly colored personal floatation devices such as water wings or life jackets are also helpful but are generally bulky and a great annoyance to the child when playing in and out of the water or merely wading in the surf. In addition, such devices interfere with swimming and playing in deeper waters because of their buoyancy. Children often want to dive in the water and play games that require freedom of motion and unencumbered swimming, and personal floatation devices interfere with such normal play.
There are specialized devices that assist the location of an underwater swimmer or scuba diver. Such devices generally consist of a small float attached to the wrist or ankle of a diver where they can be selectively released in the event of an underwater emergency to float to the surface and thus mark the location of the diver. By way of example, the Gooding U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,638 discloses a selectively releasable float which may be appropriate for trained divers, but is not appropriate for small children. In addition to the requirement that they have to be released, inadvertent release may be a hazard because the tether does not retract and a child may become entangled in the tether.
Buoys with self-retracting lines are also known to mark objects fixed to the seabed, generally to mark underwater obstructions in areas with significant tides where a fixed length may permit significant lateral drift of the buoy as the water ebbs. Such retracting lines may also be used to more closely mark the location of a boat anchor, so that the anchor may be more readily freed from the bottom by positioning the boat over the anchor for vertical lifting. Such a line shortening mechanism is shown, for example, in the Gram U.S. Pat. No. 4,808,133. However, such line shortening mechanisms have heretofore not been thought to be useful in marking the location of submerged but drifting objects. Furthermore, the retraction mechanism and lines are far too robust, and thus bulky and weighty, for use with personnel, particularly small children.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to obviate many of the disadvantages of known water safety device when employed in a beach environment and to provide a novel device for assisting the location of a child playing in or around water.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a child locator buoy which does not interfere with the normal play of the child in or out of the water, but which is a location aid in the event of distress.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a child locator buoy which is always visible at the surface of the water, with the length of the tether automatically adjusting to the depth, if any, of the child below water to minimize the inconvenience to the child as he or she moves into and out of the water or engages in active play.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a novel buoy the position of which is automatically controlled by a balance between the forces of buoy flotation and the force of retraction.
These and many other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims when read in conjunction with the appended drawings and the following detailed description of preferred embodiments.